The present invention relates to an infant care apparatus and, more particularly, to an apparatus for providing facilities for the care of an infant and having a bidirectional sliding storage drawer.
There are, of course, many devices or apparatus for the care of an infant and, among such differing such apparatus, there are infant incubators and which are confined enclosures that contain the infant within an enclosed controlled atmosphere that provides heat to the infant and also may provide control of humidity in the enclosed environment. The infant itself is positioned upon a flat, planar surface atop an infant platform. Generally the infant platform forms the base of an infant compartment that encloses the infant in a controlled environment and the infant compartment further is enclosed by transparent side walls and a cover to fully enclose that infant compartment. Such incubators maintain the infant for long periods of time and it is often necessary for the caregiver to have extended continual access to the infant within the apparatus and therefore may sit alongside the infant care apparatus to carry out some prolonged procedure on the infant.
As a further typical feature on such infant care incubators, there is always a need for storage space to contain and keep near at hand the numerous items needed to properly carry out the care of the infant. Due to the limited space in most nurseries in hospitals, it is most convenient to provide the infant care apparatus with a close at hand storage facility that is easy to access and which can have sufficient space to contain the necessary articles ready for the caregiver.
As such, typically, while it is convenient to provide a drawer in the infant apparatus, the location of such a drawer creates other problems. With infant care apparatus, it is necessary to have the infant positioned at a convenient height for the caregiver to access the infant. Generally beneath the platform on which the infant rests, there is also normally a compartment that houses the convective heating system comprising a heater, fan and the various ducting to move the heated air to and from an infant compartment. Thus, for a drawer to be added to the apparatus, its position inherently is beneath the convective heating compartment and is thus positioned relatively low within the apparatus.
Accordingly, when the infant caregiver attempts to sit in a chair next to the infant care apparatus along either lateral side thereof, where there is the best access to the infant, the caregiver is unable to get close to the apparatus as the knees of the caregiver encounter the drawer and thus the caregiver cannot get a comfortable seated position near to the infant to enable good access to the infant.
As a further problem to the caregiver being able to sit adjacent the lateral sides of the infant care apparatus, the base of the apparatus itself normally also creates an obstruction as a chair cannot be pushed close to the infant care apparatus without the logs of the chair hitting the base of the apparatus. Thus, not only is the drawer an obstruction to prevent the caregiver from sitting on a chair in close proximity to the lateral sides of the infant care apparatus, but the base of the apparatus itself is a further impediment by preventing the chair legs from being slid sufficiently underneath the apparatus to enable the caregiver to use the chair and attend to the infant.
One recognition of the problem has been stated in German Offenlegungsschrift DE 3544301 A1, where a U-shaped frame is shown that is said to allow the caregiver room to position the chair close to the incubator, however, in that publication, the incubator itself has been slanted downwardly to allow room for the persons legs and thus could not also position a convenient drawer beneath the incubator.
Also, as can be seen in the German publication, the solution to the problem is one-sided, that is, the construction allows the caregiver to sit close to the incubator on one side only and could not be adapted to allow that person to choose either side of the incubator to sit and attend to the infant. Accordingly, the solution set forth in that reference lacks versatility for the caregiver where it would be advantageous for the apparatus to allow the caregiver the option to sit close to the infant on either lateral side of the infant care apparatus.
In addition, it is extremely important that the infant care apparatus have inherent stability, that is, that R not be capable of easily being tipped and thus, it is important that the base be sufficiently wide and strong to resist tipping of the apparatus. There are difficulties in designing a base for an infant care apparatus to allow close access to a caregiver, and particularly with the use of a chair, and yet maintain good non-tipping characteristics.
Thus it would be advantageous to have an infant care apparatus that has a drawer to store equipment and supplies needed for attending to the infant and yet which drawer can be moved out of the way when the caregiver wants to be in a position seated in a chair alongside either lateral side of the infant apparatus and also have a base that allows the caregiver to place a chair sufficiently close to the apparatus to attend to the infant without being obstructed by the drawer or encountering the supporting base of the apparatus as an obstruction to placement of the chair. It would be still further advantageous to accomplish the above while retaining good non-tipping characteristics of the infant care apparatus.
Accordingly, the present invention relates to an infant care apparatus that has a base and a frame extending upwardly from the base and which has an infant platform extending outwardly, preferably in cantilever manner from the frame. The infant platform has a flat, planar surface to provide a support for positioning the infant and has lateral sides extending along the length of the infant platform and which allow the caregiver access to the full sides of the infant. A top is provided so as to fully form an infant compartment that can provide a controlled environment for the infant positioned therein.
As used in the present description, an infant incubator will be described as the preferred embodiments it being understood, however, that while the incubator is preferred for the present invention, the invention is applicable to other types of infant care apparatus, including infant warmers.
Within the infant platform, therefore, with an incubator, there is normally a heating and air moving compartment that houses the various components to provide the heat and controlled humidity to the infant positioned within the infant compartment. Such components make up a convective heating system to introduce heated air into the infant compartment and to receive air for recirculation from the infant compartment.
Located underneath the infant platform is a bidirectional sliding drawer that is used to contain objects, equipment and supplies needed for caring for the infant. The drawer has a center position where it is directly centered underneath the infant platform and thus has its lateral sides generally contiguous to the lateral sides of the infant platform. By definition herein, the lateral sides of the infant care apparatus as well as the component thereof will be the longitudinal sides of the generally rectangular infant platform, that is, the sides parallel to the longitudinal axis of the rectangular configuration and the caregiver is normally positioned along the lateral sides to enable the caregiver full access to the sides of the infant.
Accordingly, with the drawer in the center position, the drawer is closed as it is covered by the infant platform. The drawer, however, is affixed to the underside of the infant platform such that it can slide bidirectionally from that center position, that is, the drawer can slide at a right angle to its lateral sides in either direction from the center position.
As such, the caregiver can move the drawer in either direction and can thus sit at either lateral side of the infant care apparatus by simply pushing the drawer away from whichever lateral side the caregiver desires to be located in attending to the infant
As an alternative construction, the drawer can be rotatably or pivotally mounted to the infant care apparatus so that it can be rotated out of a center position in either direction to allow space for the caregiver along both of the lateral sides of the infant care apparatus.
In addition, the base itself has a preferred configuration where both lateral sides of the base are formed with an inwardly displaced center section with respect to the lateral sides of the infant platform, thus, on either side of the infant care apparatus, the caregiver can move a chair into position adjacent a lateral side and the chair legs will not be obstructed by encountering the base. In the preferred embodiment, the base is formed in the shape of a pair of slightly flattened C-shaped lateral base members, joined at the center and with each having the free ends of the C-shape extending outwardly from the center toward the lateral sides of the infant platform so that there is a space on both sides of the infant care apparatus to position the legs of a chair. In addition with the generally C-shaped base members, the free ends of the C-shape configuration can extend outwardly symmetrically and sufficiently to provide a stable base and exhibit good non-tipping characteristics.
Thus, as can be seen, due to the overall configuration of the infant care apparatus, the caregiver can be positioned in a chair and sit close to either of the lateral sides of the apparatus and be near to the infant without encountering an obstacle by the knees being obstructed by the drawer or the chair legs encountering the base and yet the infant car apparatus can have a convenient drawer to store supplies with ready availability to the caregiver without sacrificing stability characteristics.
These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent during the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the drawings herein.